I kinda breezed through your story, I hate going to best buy for anything yet I still go all the time. I have had my Ipod sent out 5 times now for bad hard drives and I have been to the store 3 times as many times. They basically told me I am better off running the thing over in the parking lot than to bring it to them and say it is doing this or that. They had my Ipod for a week this last time just to give me it back and say it has a virus or something that is why it skips songs. Yeah a virus that only affects the song saved over that part of the hard drive right. This was after they let it run for 11 hours...I have over 14 days of music on it that isn't counting the movies and tv shows I have on there. The geek squad in my opinion is a joke and the salesman who told me if I got the 3 year service plan I would get a brand new Ipod no questions asked needs to be fired as well.

 

They sold you on that bull**** too?!

They sold me the service plan with the line "if your computer breaks and it's not repairable in house, we replace it with a brand new one right then and there"

Yeah... They don't do that at all.

 

I am too a it guy and they are all dumb a$$ they ar way over charged. To install just memory they want like $50 and anyone can do that them self as long as you ground you self. Ide never recomend taking a computer to them.

 

I'm also in IT myself so I personally wouldn't go into best buy or circuit city for a computer repair but that's easy for me to say b/c I do this type of work. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of mechanics that say the same thing I say. One thing I do know is that I hate horrible service no matter where I experience it at. If it was me I would do the same thing your doing to wake some people up.

 

That's for sure.

I can't believe how many people bring their computers to these places and get ripped off.

Almost any company has an IT team, and usually if you befriend one of those guys (or even give them $$ under the table, which is usually a lot cheaper than those retail places) and you'll be set for any computer work.

Where I work, if someone asks me nice enough, and offers me money, I'm willing to take their machine home with me (on my time, not the college's time!!) and fix it for them. However, I've been overwhelmed with requests before and had to turn some people down, or if their problem was beyond fixable, like the machine needed a new motherboard and they didn't want to shell out the cash for a new one they'd go out and buy a new computer and I'd back up their old hard drive to CDs or DVDs for them... if the hard drive wasn't broke. But yeah, I'm usually courteous about it... because I'd hate to see someone swindled myself.

 

To OP, the computer you got back was all scratched prolly because its not the same one you sent out to be fixed. Places like Hp, Dell etc... what they do when they get your PC at the repair facility is the following:

1) they have lots of other units that were sent in for repair that never got shipped out so they will put your HD in one of these units, if there are no probs they ship it out.
2) if the hdd is the issue they just put in a new one, no issues, ship it out.
3) if the issue is a major HW issue like a MB they usually put your stuff in a unit they have already repaired that is sitting there and ship it out, then they will fix the PC you sent in and put it on the shelf until they need it for someone else.

They do this all the time with Monitors, can't count the number of times I had customers call saying their monitor that they sent it got returned all scratched up.

I'd check the serial number on your PC and compare it to your original paper work if you still have it.

 

never thought about it that way. thats why my gf computer was all messed up after we got it back

 

My advice, if you ever have to send something away to be fixed, take lots of pics of all sides and of any serial#s that way if it comes back scratched/damaged they can't say thats how they received it.

 

I take pics and document serial numbers for everything in my house. Just in case some sh*t bag decides to walk in and steal it.

OP, sorry for the horrible experience. I like your style though, take em down one at a time...

 

i was talking to some cops at the police station in auburn while my sister was filing a police report, they said in one bust they recovered 9 or 10 computers, only 1 was reported stolen because the kid had the serial number, the others were just sitting at their station.

 

I take reports all day and most people don't have serial numbers. Suprisingly, it does help.

 

In my experience, these extended "warranties" are complete BS. Where do you think their profit margins come from? I LOVE to listen to their little sales pitch and act like I'm a complete fool and going to buy it. Then I say "ahh, no thanks" Those BB and Geek Squad dudes are complete snot-nosed fresh out of high school morons. I love to grill them on all kinds of specs that you can educate yourself on via websites just to see if they know what they are talking about. In most cases, it's funny to realize how LITTLE they know about the products the sell / support.

Hell, even my local Ford dealer tried the ole $250 scotch guard trick (and other useless crap) on me and did the same thing. At the end of the day, this phoney "service plan" was going to jack my monthly payment up by 80 FRAKKIN BUCKS! NOT! I'm telling all of my F150 brethren to NEVER pay for an extended warranty. EVER. They are COMPLETELY worthless. Clark Howard will tell you the same thing (even though he is a cheapskate ) The ONLY kind of warranty you should EVER buy is the first year home warr you get when you buy a home. If you buy electronics, they are either going to fail in the first 90 days which is covered by the mfg (or not). In the long run you are better off scrapping a busted unit of any sort and buying another......these days this crap that Japan churns out is cheap enough that you can do that. I had a guy once that wanted to sell me a $50 plan on a DVD player that cost $120. Are you kidding? Just buy a new one and save yourself the time and headache.